Website Design Project: Final Designs

Here are the final designs for my website project. As a reminder, the business I invented, Green Sounds, is a combination record store, cafe, and live performance space that runs on solar power and is built with and uses recyclable materials.

Here's the landing page. I used leaves and an organic-looking color scheme to emphasize the "natural" aspect of the business. Like I mentioned in our tutorial discussions, I did look into the tutorial Dylan posted about adding leaves to letters, but in the end I decided I wanted the letters to actually be made of leaves rather than just have leaves on them. I did the leaves by hand with the pen tool, which was kind of laborious. Adding drop shadows helped a lot with the look. I made the record images by hand using the shaper tool. As always, please click each image below to enlarge.

Here's the Mission page. Mostly the same ideas as the first page. I tried to make the parchment by hand, and I found a tutorial about how to do it, but it involved some pretty sophisticated machinations with the pen tool that I wasn't quite up to, so I imported a parchment image from the web instead.

Here's the Space page. Since a lot of the other elements are the same as the Mission page, I used a different parchment and a different typeface to change things up a little.

Here's the Cafe page. FYI, I added a drop shadow to the Events link because it wasn't popping out enough against its background. But hopefully it doesn't look weird to have the shadow on only one of the event links; it looked OK to me.

Here's the Events page. I decided to use the wood background, which I imported from the web, to continue the theme of maintaining an organic feel. Again I added drop shadows to the links where they overlapped with the calendar so they popped out better.

Website Design Sketch: Green Sounds

The green business I invented for this project is an environmentally conscious record store that uses green power, recyclable materials, etc. and features an organic cafe featuring locally sourced fare, as well as a performance space run by solar power. It's called Green Sounds.

Here's the landing page design. The letters spelling "green" are made out of leaves, the background is a record, as are the "O"'s in "Our" for each of the links. Please click the image to enlarge.

Here's the mission statement page. Similar leaves and records in the lettering scheme. And as indicated in the image, handwritten-looking letters on parchment-style paper for the actual mission statement. Click to enlarge the image.

Here's the space page, giving details about the space, with a photo showing the record store/performance space. Same leaves, record images, parchment.

Here's the cafe page, with a menu image containing a description of the cafe as well as a listing of its fare. Leaves, record images are continued.

Here's the events page listing the events occurring each day at the performance space, on a calendar image. These would be clickable and each lead to an individual page with more detailed info. Leaves, record images are continued.

Identity Design & Branding: Final Logo Designs

I tried to keep my final designs as close to my sketches as I could. Here's the EmpireX logo. I decided to go with the second of the two variations I had sketched out. FYI: I realized too late that I should have figured out how to upload it in a way that would enable you to see it against a white background when you click to enlarge it here, but oh well...

Here are the Piano Pets and Pizza Pi logos. For the latter, I've included two versions, one where the word "pi" is actually spelled out over the pi symbol and one with just the symbol, which I think might be enough on its own. FYI: these are basically meant to be children's games, so the logos are intended to be kid-friendly. Please click the images to see in proper size.

Identity Design & Branding: Logos

I came up with two ideas for EmpireX logos. In each, I went with the idea that the word "empire" suggested to me the idea of a dark, imposing cityscape. In both of them I used the letters in "empire" as buildings with lighted windows (the buildings will be black, the windows probably bright yellow). But in the second one I also used the idea that X implies something that's secret or incognito, so I put the X in front to partially hide the "empire." Please click on the image to get a bigger, better look.

The first game idea I came up with was Piano Pets, in which the users would control cats and dogs that run across a virtual piano keyboard in order to make music. The idea is that it would be an instructional music education game for kids. Pretty simple visual idea: I just used cat and dog faces to adorn some of the letters spelling Piano Pets across the keyboard.

The second game idea is Pizza Pi, another educational game, in which you'd assemble all the ingredients to make a pizza one by one, by correctly answering math questions. I used splattery, mozzarella cheese-looking lettering for "pizza" and the Pi symbol to encapsulate the word "pi," for which the lettering would be more digital-looking in contrast to the (literally) cheesy "pizza" lettering. Again, please click the images so you can see them better.

Artist Statement

On a basic level, the notion of writing an artist statement for an art form that I'm only just beginning to learn seems like the height of hubris. But in the sense that I'm creating one to use as a kind of aesthetic marker for where I'm at and where I want to go, as an aid to the learning process, I'll endeavor to state my artistic aims in graphic design as best I can.

In my heart of hearts I aspire to be able to create design work that affects people the way the designs I admire affect me. That said, an inspired blend of colors, typography, and concept is what moves me in terms of graphic design. The more I learn, the more I realize the infinite array of artistic choices that are possible within all the tools at one's disposal in programs like Photoshop and Illustrator; as with any other art form, the real challenge and the definitive artistic statement are in the choices you make.

I value simplicity greatly as a tool; I feel that the minimum amount of elements necessary to make a visual point is the amount that should be employed, nothing more. In my view, the simpler the statement (regardless of the complexities that may have gone into making it) the more intense and visceral its impact can be. If anything, that's what I would strive for in my designs -- to work as simply and succinctly as possible, and with as much impact as possible, whether I'm creating a logo, designing a website, making a poster, or anything in between.